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DECISION

Promulgating a number of mechanisms and policies to support socio-economic development in Mekong river delta provinces and cities till 2010

THE PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the December 25, 2001 Law on Organization of the Government;

At the proposal of the Minister of Planning and Investment in Report No. 3263/TTr-BKH of May 14, 2007,

DECIDES:

Article 1.- To promulgate a number of mechanisms and policies to support socio-economic development in Mekong River delta provinces and cities (including Can Tho city and Long An, Tien Giang, Ben Tre, Vinh Long, Tra Vinh, Dong Thap, An Giang, Kien Giang, Soc Trang, Hau Giang, Bac Lieu and Ca Mau provinces) till 2010 as follows:

I. Major objectives and norms till 2010:

- The regional GDP will grow at over 11%/year on average.

- The rate of poor households (by new standards) will be 10-11%.

- The rate of under-5 malnourished children will be under 20%.

- Over 95% of children of primary school age will go to school. The rates will be respectively over 85% for lower secondary school pupils and over 50% for higher secondary school pupils. One hundred percent of schools and classrooms will be solidified and over 70% of schools and classrooms will reach national standards. Professional secondary school enrolment will annually grow at over 20%. The rate of university and college students will rise to over 120 students/10,000 people.

- Around 38-40% of laborers will be trained.

- Ninety percent of communes will reach the national healthcare standards. Eighty percent of communal health centers will have doctors.

- Ninety percent of urban inhabitants and 75% of rural inhabitants will have access to clean water.

2. Key tasks to develop a number of key branches and domains

a/ Industry:

To develop industrial production towards prioritizing the agro-forestry- aquatic product processing industry in order to make key products for export. To exploit gas potential off the southwestern coast for development of the gas-electricity-fertilizer industry; to ensure the progress of construction and commission of gas-fired power plants in the region and speed up the construction of Ca Mau fertilizer plant. To develop the mechanical engineering industry in service of agro-fisheries production and shipbuilding. To develop the production of construction materials such as cement, brick and tile, and ready-made concrete structure for building of dwelling houses in the region.

b/ Agriculture-forestry-fisheries:

To stabilize the rice-growing area with good irrigation conditions for intensive farming with higher productivity; to put into mass production high-quality rice for export. To strongly develop cultivation of fruits, vegetables, flowers and ornamental trees in localities where conditions permit, formulating areas specializing in fruit trees, flowers and ornamental trees of export value.

To develop aquaculture, creating commodity production areas with high outputs for export; to strive for a total aquatic output of over 2.2 million tons by 2010, over 60% of which will come from aquaculture. To encourage all economic sectors to invest in building large production areas of quality aquatic breeders.

To protect and develop coastal mangrove forests and Phu Quoc primitive forest; to restore and plant cajuput forests in low-lying and aluminous areas of Dong Thap Muoi (Plain of Reeds), Long Xuyen Quadrangle, western Hau River and Ca Mau peninsula; to plant coastal protection forests; to plant breakwater trees in flooded areas, along rivers and canals, and in residential clusters and lines of flooded areas.

c/ Development of trade, services and tourism:

To expand the trade network for sale of commodity farm produce. To develop wholesale markets and markets for cross-border trade with Cambodia. To strive to double the entire region's 2005 total retail sales and service turnover by 2010. To boost the export of aquatic products, farm produce, flowers and fruits; to improve rice variety quality as well as harvesting and processing technologies to raise the rice export value. By 2010, the region's total export value will reach USD 6.2-6.5 billion, of which aquatic exports will fetch USD 2.2 billion. The average export value will reach over USD 350/person/year.

To step by step promote the sale of agro-forestry and aquatic commodity products in appropriate forms of partnership and contract between farmer households or cooperatives and enterprises on the principle of mutual agreement and benefit. By 2010, over 60% of farmer households will produce and sell commodities under contracts with buyers' specific addresses; by this mode, processing and trade enterprises will have stable input materials for production and business.

To expand such forms of organization as cooperative, production enterprise, club and professional association for support of production and sale. To form societies for cooperation in production and sale and prompt exchange of market and price information in order to protect the interests of producers and traders. To work out solutions for each branch and domain on product quality improvement, trade promotion, brand establishment and protection, forming stable and sustainable markets.

To develop tourism in order to tap the region's particular potential, build tourist and recreational complexes, and attach ecotourism to landscapes and historical relics; to develop tourism in Ca Mau mangrove forest and Dong Thap Muoi; to develop marine and island tourism, concentrating on Phu Quoc island.

To strongly develop various services to meet development demand. To improve the quality of education, health, finance, banking, insurance and consultancy services.

d/ Education and socio-cultural domains:

To raise people's intellectual standards, promote an inter-branch society and education, especially university, college and vocational education. To upgrade and found a number universities and colleges.

To intensify training of science workers and technicians. To build a number of qualified institutes and centers for research into science and technology, firstly biotechnology in service of the region.

- To invest in building and upgrading provincial-level hospitals in order to improve healthcare service quality and reduce workload for higher-level hospitals; to accelerate the construction and modernization of specialized hospitals in Can Tho city to serve the entire region. To build and upgrade district-level hospitals and grassroots health stations. To upgrade detoxification centers in key localities in association with vocational training for detoxified persons. To prevent and promptly control epidemics; to control the growth of and step by step reduce social diseases, especially HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. All villages will have medical workers. The rate of hospital beds will reach over 20 beds/10,000 people.

- To develop and preserve the national cultural identity. To build provincial-level culture-information centers, build and upgrade local radio-television stations, improve and build grassroots radio stations (prioritizing deep-lying, remote, border and ethnic minority areas), to expand the program for broadcast in Khmer language and its broadcast time volume.

- By 2010, the urban unemployment rate of working age laborers will be under 5%. The rural working time will be raised to 85%. Trained technical workers and laborers of higher qualifications will account for over 15% of rural workforce; the life expectancy will reach 72.

e/ Science, technology and environmental protection: To prioritize the development of scientific and technological research institutions and breeder farms and nurseries. To increasingly apply scientific and technological research achievements to production, especially agricultural production and aquaculture.

By 2010, 100% of newly built production establishments will apply clean technology or have pollution reduction equipment, and treat waste up to environmental standards.

To basically complete the improvement and upgrade of rainwater and wastewater drainage systems in urban centers, industrial parks and export-processing zones. Over 40% of urban centers and over 80% of industrial parks and export-processing zones will have concentrated wastewater treatment systems up to environmental standards, over 90% of solid waste will be collected, and over 60% of hazardous waste and 100% of hospital waste will be treated.

To adopt mechanisms for coordination among provinces and cities in the region and for cooperation with countries in the Mekong River sub-region in exploiting, using and conserving Mekong River water sources for sustainable development.

f/ Human resource development:

- To implement the Prime Minister's Decision No. 20/2006/QD-TTg of January 20, 2006, on development of education, training and vocational training in the Mekong River Delta till 2010. This is a strategic task, aiming to raise people's intellectual standards and train human resources for the Mekong River delta in the coming years.

- Human resources must be developed in a comprehensive manner from raising people's intellectual standards, increasing the quantity and improving the quality of learning and training of all educational levels, diversifying forms of vocational training suitable to each target group, each branch and trade to be developed in each locality, building a contingent of qualified leaders, managers and entrepreneurs, adopting proper mechanisms and policies in order to attract talents and highly qualified science workers and technicians. To regularly supplement, and adopt policies to effectively employ, cadres of central agencies and enterprises based in localities, who are assigned to work for provinces or districts, and assign district cadres to work for communes; to shift handcore cadres.

The local budget will annually set aside a certain fund for vocational training; to encourage enterprises to provide vocational training, to provide loans and create conditions for poor students to have access to vocational training.

To build and restructure the vocational training system toward training practicing technicians at different levels and with different training durations (technical workers, skilled technical workers and highly qualified technical workers) to attract lower and upper secondary school graduates and demobilized soldiers.

To organize diversified forms of training with appropriate models. To encourage the socialization of vocational training. To pay attention to closely combining vocation training with job generation for vocational graduates.

g/ Infrastructure construction:

- Irrigation

To implement the Prime Minister's Decision No. 84/2006/QD-TTg of April 19, 2006, approving the adjustment and supplementation of the master plan on irrigation for the Mekong River delta in the 2006-2010 period and orientations toward 2020; to prioritize investment in building key irrigation works in order to rationally and efficiently use and exploit Mekong River water sources for agricultural production, aquaculture and natural disaster prevention and control. To work out a strategy on management, exploitation and conservation of freshwater sources of Tien and Hau rivers.

To further invest in completing Ba Lai irrigation work (in Ben Tre province), a program to freshen Go Cong and Ca Mau peninsula, a flood control work in Dong Thap Muoi region and Long Xuyen Quadrangle and a floodwater drainage zone between Tien and Hau rivers to meet the region's demand for economic restructuring.

To implement the Prime Minister's Decision No. 193/2006/QD-TTg of August 24, 2006, approving the program on population distribution in natural disaster- and exceptional difficulty-hit areas, border regions, islands, areas inhabited by free migrants, important and very important areas of protective forests, and strictly protected zones of special-use forests in the 2006-2010 period and orientations towards 2015.

To enhance the management and use of irrigation works, ensuring their systematization and uniformity. To work out irrigation plannings, support control of erosion in areas bordering on Cambodia and erosion-stricken areas along Tien and Hau rivers, and ensure safety and efficient use of Mekong River's water sources under the conditions of adverse changes upstream.

- Transport

To implement the Prime Minister's Decision No. 344/2005/QD-TTg of December 26, 2005, on guidelines, tasks and plans on transport development for the Mekong River delta till 2010 and orientations towards 2020.

To build according to set schedule and put into operation government bond-funded works.

To concentrate investment on construction of a number of key roads, riverway, sea routes and airports; to prioritize routes leading to or along the border with Cambodia to meet the region's socio-economic development demand in the coming years.

To review lists of works and projects and every item of each work for organization of priority order and rescheduling of works that are not so urgent in order to meet the entire region's transport development demand while matching the annual capital balancing capacity.

To ensure close coordination for prompt settlement of arising problems for major projects in which investment has been transferred from the Ministry of Transport to localities, ensuring their timely implementation.

- Dwelling houses and residential clusters and lines in flooded areas

To improve the efficiency of residential clusters and lines in flooded areas; to concentrate and combine capital sources for fast and comprehensive construction of infrastructure works in residential clusters and lines such as road, electricity, and water supply facilities, healthcare and education work for inhabitants' resettlement; to introduce appropriate trades into residential clusters and lines to generate jobs for inhabitants, ensuring their stable income and better living standards. To strive to complete the relocation of inhabitants in flooded areas to new areas for resettlement by 2008. To build residential clusters and lines into new cultural points.

To mobilize all resources for implementation of the program on elimination of temporarily- or simply-built houses, and repair, upgrade or building of consolidated or semi-consolidated houses for poor families in the region. To basically address the shortage of dwelling houses and land for rural poor families in the region.

To build rural residential clusters in association with development of post, telecommunications, radio and television to improve people's living conditions and meet agricultural and rural industrialization and modernization requirements.

- To build and develop urban centers in the region's central quadrangle, which are Can Tho city, Vinh Long town, Xa Dec town and Long Xuyen city; to develop Can Tho city into an industrial, trade-service, tourist, education and training, health and cultural center of the region.

h/ Defense and security maintenance:

To combine socio-economic development investment with infrastructure construction in service of regional defense and security, especially in border and island areas.

To concentrate on marine economic development. To increase investment in infrastructure for economic, rescue and control activities on rivers and at sea.

To well implement policies on ethnicity and religion; to ensure security and social order and safety.

Article 2.- To continue implementing and supplementing a number of mechanisms, policies and solutions for socio-economic development and maintenance of regional defense and security.

1. Mechanisms and policies on agriculture and rural development:

- Households being inhabitants in important, very important and strictly protected zones of protective and special-use forests in the Mekong River delta subject to relocation and rearrangement are entitled to incentives under the Government's Decree No. 197/2004/ND-CP of December 3, 2004, on compensation, support and resettlement upon land recovery by the State.

- All migrants in project areas and households in natural disaster- or flood-hit areas to be relocated to flood-resistant residential clusters and lines, that have no land for reclamation or expansion of agro-forestry production acreage and local migrants are entitled central budget supports under the Prime Minister's Decision No. 190/2003/QD-TTg of September 16, 2003.

- To permit the application of current mechanisms and policies prescribed in the following decisions to the Mekong River delta:

+ Decision No. 304/2005/QD-TTg of November 23, 2005, on the pilot allotment of forests and contractual assignment of forests for protection to households and communities.

+ Decision No. 231/2005/QD-TTg of September 22, 2005, on support for state agro-forestry enterprises, special use forest management boards and protective forest management boards employing ethnic minority people.

2. Land policies for landless farmers or farmers lacking production land:

- To create more land funds through land reclamation; to scrutinize land funds of state agro-forestry farms, which have not or inefficiently been used and recover and hand over them to localities for allotment to farmer households that do not have production land.

- Where public land funds no longer exist, local administrations shall assist laborers in switching trades by providing vocational training, recruiting them to local facories, enterprises and cottage industry and service establishments, or supplying laborers for industrial parks in other regions.

- To create conditions for a group of landless or land-lacking farmers to resettle in new economic zones or expand trades in different forms, to generate jobs for farmers without production land. To generate more jobs for rural young people through labor export.

3. Mechanisms and policies for ethnic minority people:

- To concentrate on effective implementation of Decision No. 134/2004/QD-TTg of July 20, 2004, on a number of support policies on production and residential land, dwelling houses and daily-life water for poor ethnic minority people; to properly implement other state social policies suitable to their conditions and custom.

- To implement the policy on state budget support for construction of schools exclusively for Khmer children and southern sect Buddhist monks and crematoria according to ethnic minority people's custom, to provide support for teachers (including monks) teaching Khmer language in pagodas.

- To prioritize the increase of investment levels lent by the Social Policy Bank and other capital sources. To well implement agricultural and industrial extension and increase guidance on doing business for ethnic minority people.

- Each locality should, within its competence, specify regulations on exemption or reduction of contributions for poor families of ethnic minority people apart from exemption of schooling and healthcare fees.

- To continue preferential credit policies for poor households, other social policy beneficiaries and production and business households in difficulty-hit regions to be carried out by the Social Policy Bank and the Development Bank under the Prime Minister's decision.

- To expand enrolment of ethnic minority pupils by nomination mode. Poor ethnic minority pupils who are entitled to go to boarding schools but study at public or semi-public schools are entitled to a scholarship equal to 50% of the scholarship at boarding schools under current regulations. To prioritize the employment of trained ethnic minority laborers.

- To specify incentive policies for enterprises investing in areas of the Khmer people and projects employing a large number of ethnic minority laborers.

- To expand the program for broadcast in Khmer language and increase its broadcast time volume, upgrade and build grassroots public-address stations. To adopt plans to preserve, exploit and bring into play cultures of ethnic minority groups in the region.

- To continue implementing the Prime Minister's Decision No. 139/2002/QD-TTg of October 15, 2002, on medical examination and treatment for the poor and social policy beneficiaries.

- To adjust the norms of expenses for medicine and consumption of common medical materials for communal health stations, to raise allowances for preschool teachers and health workers equal to 50% of the base salary applicable to difficulty-hit communes under the Prime Minister's Decision No.30/2007/QD-TTg of March 5, 2007.

4. Mechanisms and policies on mobilizing resources for development:

- To mobilize to the utmost resources, especially those from exploitation of land funds and public property, and rearrangement and equitization of state enterprises. To continue implementing socialization policies under the Government's Resolution No. 05/2005/NQ-CP in a manner suitable to economic and social conditions of each locality. The state budget allocates funds for investment in construction of key infrastructures.

- To encourage expansion of modes of loan provision for producers, particularly the mode whereby enterprises advance capital for producers and get products in return.

- To organize events for promotion of local advantages and domains entitled to preferential investment in order to call for FDI investment in localities. At the same time to promulgate specific regulations in order to assist enterprises in accessing land, production sites and funding sources; to support enterprises through ground clearance and human resource training; to set up a fund for credit guarantee.

5. Mechanisms on state budget capital supports:

Localities in the region may annually receive central budget supports through programs and projects managed by ministries or branches; and target-based investment supports.

The central budget capital supports shall be prioritized for construction of economic and social infrastructures. Locally managed works and projects shall be mostly funded by local budgets and may receive partial support from the central budget based on the capacity of balancing the annual state budget approved by the National Assembly.

- From now to 2010, to concentrate on mobilizing and prioritizing ODA capital for the Mekong River delta for investment in building socio-economic infrastructures for comprehensive rural development, hunger elimination and poverty reduction; to develop transport and irrigation networks, make new investment in and upgrade water supply and drainage systems; to support education and training development; to develop healthcare networks and epidemic prevention and control systems.

Localities shall elaborate plans on attracting and using ODA capital from now to 2010 to serve as a basis for fund mobilization and establish close relations with ministries and branches for integration of major ODA programs or projects, to establish relationship with donors for better access to ODA capital and non-governmental organizations' funding sources, to organize conferences on ODA coordination for the entire region.

- To raise the central budget support level to VND 70 billion or less for industrial park investment in localities meeting the criteria prescribed in the Prime Minister's Decision No. 183/2004/QD-TTg of October 19, 2004 (including feeding roads or roads and bridges leading to industrial parks).

- To provide central budget supports of VND 70 billion or less for localities meeting the criteria prescribed in Decision No. 183/2004/QD-TTg to build infrastructure of the second industrial park selected by localities.

- To support 100% of domestic capital for locally managed ODA projects satisfying support conditions under the Prime Minister's Decision No. 210/2006/QD-TTg of September 12, 2006.

- To continue allocating funds for the implementation of the Prime Minister's Decision No. 84/2006/QD-TTg of April 19, 2006, the Prime Minister's No. 344/2005/QD-TTg of December 26, 2005, and the Prime Minister's Decision No. 78/2004/QD-TTg of May 7, 2004, adjusting and supplementing a number of mechanisms and policies for acceleration of construction of residential clusters and lines in flood-frequented areas in the Mekong River delta and combination and integration of local programs and targets; to prioritize and concentrate on allocating funds from programs on clean water, rural environmental sanitation, school construction and upgrading, healthcare programs and other programs to uniformly complete infrastructures in residential clusters and lines.

Article 3- Organization of implementation

1. The People's Committees of provinces and cities in the Mekong River delta shall consider solutions to drastically improve their investment and business environment and attract investment capital sources for economic growth; at the same time closely coordinate with ministries and central branches in formulating and implementing programs and projects; coordinate with ministries, ministerial-level agencies and government-attached agencies in reviewing, supplementing and adjusting local master plans on socio-economic development and branch development master plans suitable in terms of space and time and conforming to new situations; to determine mechanisms on coordination between localities, and between ministries as well as branches and localities; to elaborate the 2006-2010 five-year plan and annual plans according to targets under approved master plans and implementation schedules for each period. To specify lists of major five-year programs and projects and their annual plans; to supervise the implementation of development investment in accordance with planning.

Localities shall properly carry out ground clearance and pay compensation, manage construction investment in order to accelerate construction of transport and irrigation works funded by government bonds.

To use for proper purpose incomes from lottery sale given to localities for investment in education-training, healthcare and social welfare facilities.

2. Together with provinces and cities in the region, ministries and branches shall, based on their functions, tasks and powers and this Decision, implement specific programs and projects within the scope of their responsibility.

To review, adjust, supplement and elaborate master plans and plans on branches and domains under their management and reach agreement with provinces and cities in the region on their branch master plans prior to approval. Simultaneously, to strictly implement their 2006-2010 branch development programs, schemes and plans approved by the Prime Minister; to closely coordinate with localities in the region in working out and promulgating a coordination mechanism for quick and synchronous development within the regional economic space.

3. Ministries, branches and localities shall biannually and annually submit reports on the implementation of this Decision to the Ministry of Planning and Investment for sum-up and report to the Prime Minister.

4. Annually, the Ministry of Planning and Investment shall take the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with concerned ministries and branches and localities in the Mekong River delta in, reviewing, summing up and reporting this Decision's implementation results.

Article 4- This Decision takes effect 15 days after its publication in "CONG BAO."

Article 4- Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, heads of government-attached agencies, and presidents of People's Committees of provinces and cities in the Mekong River delta shall implement this Decision.